As I slowly separated the juicy segments of the firm, red fruit that I had just carefully peeled, I was inspired to write a column about the grapefruit. In my mind, the grapefruit is a winter fruit. As apples and pears soften and develop dimples, the grapefruit and its citrus kin are reaching their peak.

But when I informed my husband of my plan, he practically winced as he told me that the grapefruit wasn’t a very Christmassy topic. Shouldn’t I be talking about chestnuts or mandarin oranges?
I beg to differ; ‘tis the season of grapefruit. Just look in the current Martha Stewart magazine and you will find at least two recipes featuring grapefruits. One is a salad with grapefruit, oranges, endive, and fennel with a ginger-hazelnut dressing, and the other is an outrageous chocolate-mousse cake with layers of grapefruit segments and raisins that looks scrumptious. I have another one in my files that is a prawn and grapefruit cocktail that sounds positively elegant. How can anyone deny that the grapefruit isn’t a winter fruit? I don’t know about you, but I have no desire to argue with Martha!

Florida grapefruit begin their trek into Canadian stores after September each year, with the peak of the harvest in February, thereby making it a winter fruit.

The grapefruit as we know it, in its many varieties; from white to red; seedless and seedful (?), is a man-made food. That is, its parentage is questionable. The only truly known fact is that it arrived in the Caribbean in 1750 with a British sailor named Shaddock. He had found it growing in the Philippines, and this thick-skinned, sour citrus fruit called a pomelo really took to the new climate. This original fruit is still grown and called a Shaddock today.

It wasn’t long before growers began to mess with it, trying to make it sweeter and with fewer seeds. Likely by crossing it with sweet oranges, they created the many varieties of what became known as the grapefruit. The new fruit was called a grapefruit because it grows in clusters like grapes. As an aside, “seedless” fruit need only have less than 5 seeds to qualify, so don’t be trying to return those bags of grapefruit when you do find a few seeds. It wasn’t long before the fruit was transplanted to Florida, which today produces over 80% of the world’s grapefruit. 

Pink and red grapefruit not only taste better and look prettier—that would be my none-too-objective opinion—but they also have more health benefits than white. All grapefruit are a terrific source of vitamin C and soluble fibre, but the pink varieties also contains the anti-oxidant beta-carotene and the phytochemical, lycopene; both connected to cancer prevention.

In the ‘50s and ‘60s, the grapefruit was very much part of many fine dinner plans, often served as the first or appetizer course of a meal. A grapefruit cocktail was commonly found as a starter course, or alternately, a glass of the juice. Most menus of those days included some sort of fruit or seafood cocktail; fruit or vegetable juice to start the meal. That was before the Caesar salad, apparently!

How many people today have either a grapefruit knife or the special serrated spoons in their cutlery drawers, let alone the fruit nappies that once came with all dish sets? I remember eating the half grapefruits served to us for breakfast. We could easily dig out the perfectly cut segments that our mom had cut using the special curved knife and after we finished, pick up the shell and drink down the sugar-sweetened juice. I also remember the sugared and broiled halves served at the start of some dinners.

Years later, I remember my dad spending (what seemed like) hours, meticulously picking every little piece of white skin off the peeled fruit, carefully separating the segments, and eating slowly. This was likely due to the resurfacing of what some were calling (incorrectly) the Mayo diet; a diet from the ‘30s, which was basically a high protein diet with unlimited eggs and grapefruit. Like all fad diets, especially ones based on exclusivity, it was destined to fail due to boredom, not to mention being incredibly imbalanced. He told me that he lost weight because it took so long to get it ready to eat: can’t argue with that.

I usually eat my grapefruit alone; often over the kitchen sink; one carefully peeled segment at a time. I don’t think that I have ever served one as a starter course for dinner; certainly not halved, although I did have one served to me at a hotel breakfast the other morning, and it got me to thinking that it would be a fun idea; if only I had the knife and serrated spoons to go along with it! Perhaps for Christmas, a meal infamous for its excessiveness, a refreshing starter of a broiled half grapefruit or one cut into wedges in a salad would be perfect. I could always scatter it with some roasted chestnuts, mandarin oranges, and sun-dried cranberries to make it extra Christmassy for Jordan.